title: Striatal shape in Parkinson's disease.
abstract: Parkinson's disease (PD) is marked pathologically by nigrostriatal dopaminergic terminal loss. Histopathological and in vivo labeling studies demonstrate that this loss occurs most extensively in the caudal putamen and caudate head. Previous structural studies have suggested reduced striatal volume and atrophy of the caudate head in PD subjects. The spatial distribution of atrophy in the putamen, however, has not been characterized. We aimed to delineate the specific locations of atrophy in both of these striatal structures. T1- and T2-weighted brain MR (3T) images were obtained from 40 PD and 40 control subjects having no dementia and similar age and gender distributions. Shape analysis was performed using doubly segmented regions of interest. Compared to controls, PD subjects had lower putamen (p = 0.0003) and caudate (p = 0.0003) volumes. Surface contraction magnitudes were greatest on the caudal putamen (p ≤ 0.005) and head and dorsal body of the caudate (p ≤ 0.005). This spatial distribution of striatal atrophy is consistent with the known pattern of dopamine depletion in PD and may reflect global consequences of known cellular remodeling phenomena.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Pennsylvania State University-Milton S Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA 17033-0850, USA.
authors.forename: Nicholas W
authors.initials: NW
authors.lastname: Sterling
authors.forename: Guangwei
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Du
authors.forename: Mechelle M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Lewis
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Dimaio
authors.forename: Lan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kong
authors.forename: Paul J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Eslinger
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Styner
authors.forename: Xuemei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Huang
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology; D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology*; D013223:Statistics as Topic
keywords: Caudate; Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); Morphology; Parkinson's disease; Putamen; Shape; Striatum; Structure; Volume